# 13 Sided Polygon of Charges

Imagine you have a regular 13 sided polygon with charges distributed on every corner of the polygon.

What would a test charge experience in the center?

The answer to that was a 0 net force (which makes some intuitive sense to me due to the symmetry of the polygon). I understand that if we were to place a force in the

However what would happen if one were to remove one of the charges?

Thanks.

Just draw the 12 arrows and you´ll see the result.

Redbelly98
Staff Emeritus
Homework Helper
Just draw the 12 arrows and you´ll see the result.
That seems a rather tedious and time-consuming way to go about this. It is much easier to take the previous result of zero, then subtract the force that was due to the removed charge.

Alright that seems like a reasonable way to go about this.. I guess I just want to double check too that describing the symmetry of the polygon is an adequate way to solve this problem, and if there was a more elegant way to answer the problem.

Redbelly98
Staff Emeritus